We propose the formation of a computer resource to serve the research needs of the academic molecular biology community. This resource, to be called BIONET, will provide essential assistance in solving the symbolic data analysis and synthesis problems of laboratory scientists. BIONET will foster the development of a national community of scientists, where geographic separation is not a bar to the rapid sharing of information and collaboration in research. It will have a staff specially trained in guiding computer-naive scientists in the application of advanced computational tools without the need to become computer experts themselves. The core research component of the BIONET resource will consist of: developing mechanisms for the new wave of small, but powerful, workstation computers to link smoothly to a large, shared national resource; providing a sound evaluation of these new computers as vehicles for local scientific computation in laboratories; building advanced artificial intelligence based training aids for the use of the BIONET service; and organizing nationally shared knowledge bases describing much of the factual and procedural knowledge of modern molecular biology.